Chapter 17
Nipple blebs.
Four on the right.
Three on the left.
Son Jeonga stared down in surprise at white spots she'd never even noticed before.
Thin skin had grown over the milk duct openings.
Beneath that, breast milk had lost moisture, hardened like concrete, and blocked the exits.
The breast kept producing milk even though there was nowhere for it to go.
The trapped milk had swollen the entire breast.
Different cause.
Same result.
"Did it feel like needles stabbing you? And you have a fever now too, right?"
"Yes! Exactly!"
Son Jeonga nodded enthusiastically.
"We need to remove those plugs and drain what has built up inside."
Standing beside the sterile cart, Jo Eunjae tilted her head internally.
This isn't really something a doctor normally does herself.
Yesterday's mastitis abscess had at least involved infection and required drainage.
But today's nipple blebs were different.
Although most doctors wouldn't have touched yesterday's case either.
Simple engorgement and nipple blebs weren't conditions that normally required a physician to personally roll up their sleeves.
Most would prescribe an anti-inflammatory painkiller and say,
'Go find a breast-massage clinic or breastfeeding specialist and have them open the ducts.'
There was no obligation or reason for a doctor to personally massage and empty the patient's breasts.
"Prepare a twenty-six-gauge needle."
Yet Director Im Gain gave the order without showing the slightest displeasure.
She was asking for a fine needle to remove the nipple blebs.
Apparently, she truly intended to do it herself.
She's really going to do this.
Eunjae was amazed all over again.
Gain placed a tray beneath Jeonga's breast and gently stroked the hard areas to loosen them.
Son Jeonga's rough breathing slowly calmed.
Gain eventually stopped and looked at her.
"The urgent pain should feel a little better now. All right, then..."
"Huh? This part where you're loosening it actually feels really good. Why did you stop?"
"We need to fix the cause."
A tiny amount of divine power hidden in her fingertips.
Gain had decided to conserve it.
But she still wanted to ease the suffering directly in front of her.
That tiny power was the reason Jeonga's tension had melted away.
"You can just keep massaging it..."
The way your entire body loosened after spending a long time in a sauna.
Son Jeonga, who had been sharp and hostile a moment ago, was now melting like butter under warm sunlight.
"PrettyMom... I mean, PrettyMom-nim wasn't lying after all. And just like she said, you really are beautiful. And kind."
Even her tone had changed.
"Please soak sterile gauze in warm water."
Gain laid the warm gauze over the reddened breast.
The faint divine power gathered at her fingertips gently relaxed the hardened surrounding tissues.
The warm gauze would hide the strange warmth of divine power.
Now it was time to treat the actual cause.
"We have to remove these blebs so the pain doesn't come back. We need to solve the cause."
Gain held the areola widely between her thumb and index finger.
After confirming the tiny opening, she pressed the tip of the needle firmly into the white bleb covering the milk duct.
"Mm!"
Jeonga twisted as she swallowed a scream.
Pop!
The white plug blocking the nipple flew away like a cork.
Pwah!
At the same moment, the tremendous pressure trapped inside exploded outward.
This was on a completely different scale from Minseo's case yesterday.
Thick yellowish old milk, which had lost water and clumped together for several days, rushed out.
It was sticky like melted cheese.
And then...
Like a collapsed dam, a massive amount of breast milk shot into the air like a broken fire hydrant.
Splash!
"W-wait, what?!"
Jo Eunjae hurriedly raised sterile gauze like a shield.
But a ten-centimeter square of gauze wasn't remotely enough against the fountain of milk.
FSSSHHHH!
"Ugh!"
The powerful stream smashed past the gauze shield.
White milk sprayed across Eunjae's neat glasses, mask, uniform, and nursing shoes.
It looked like she'd taken a water cannon directly to the face at a summer water park.
That wasn't all.
The milk flew all the way to the poster of the female reproductive system hanging on the wall and struck it directly.
As sticky white milk scattered everywhere, Son Jeonga let out a groan.
"Uuuugh..."
It sounded like a drunk man drinking boiling hangover soup straight from the earthenware pot after a terrible night.
The only clean person in the room was Im Gain.
This way.
Thanks to decades of battlefield experience, Gain avoided the streams with minimal movement.
Son Jeonga closed her eyes as the stone-hard breasts became soft and comfortable.
Once all the milk had emptied, the breasts that had looked ready to explode became soft and slightly sagged.
Without caring about the milk splashed everywhere, Gain calmly said,
"It's fully drained. You should feel much more comfortable now."
Unlike Jo Eunjae, who stared blankly at the milk stains reaching all the way to the wall, Gain looked perfectly peaceful.
"Nurse Jo, go change your clothes."
"Y-yes!"
Eunjae rushed out.
During her time as the Saintess, Gain had been covered in dragon blood and even the contents of an Orc's stomach.
Compared with that, this smell was nothing.
"Ah! That feels incredible!"
With the pain completely gone, Jeonga rolled her eyes in amazement.
"Director, I'm sorry I called you a scammer when I came in. You really do have the hands of a god. But..."
Her eyes sharpened as she adjusted her clothing.
"Seriously, this is driving me crazy. If you're this good, why the hell did you open your clinic buried inside some traditional market alley?"
"Thank you, Director. Seriously, I feel alive!"
"Use this towel before you go."
Even after the consultation ended and Jeonga left the room, her booming voice could still be heard from the reception area.
"Hey, front-desk lady! Give me my receipt. And if I can get a medical certificate, give me that too. No, actually, let me take a picture myself."
Click. Click.
The sound of photos being taken reached the consultation room.
She was photographing the receipt.
"Every idiot who ran their mouth saying those posts were fake is getting buried on Daum Café today. Director, you just sit there and get ready to rake in money. Ah, I feel alive again!"
Son Jeonga didn't stop talking even as she stormed out of the building.
The door closed.
The silence afterward felt like the aftermath of a hurricane.
Choi Yuri stared blankly at the retreating figure.
"She was... a very energetic and unique patient."
Gain only shrugged lightly.
A faint smile spread across her lips.
She reminds me of Magni, the Dwarf Queen.
During her time as the Saintess, Gain had once accidentally saved the queen of the Dwarves.
The ruler of the rough Dwarven people, who worked with fire and iron, had nearly died during a difficult childbirth.
She survived thanks to a C-section.
Even without anesthesia, she endured the entire surgery.
Then she'd gotten out of bed only an hour afterward, shocking Gain.
Later, when the high priests of the Holy Kingdom began discussing whether Im Gain might be a heretic, Queen Magni had marched straight into the temple carrying an enormous battle axe.
From this moment on, any bastard who insults the Saintess gets their skull split in half by my axe! You dare question the woman who saved me and my child? I'll rip out your tongues and roast them in my furnace!
The image of Son Jeonga storming outside while swinging a red-lit Chocolate Phone like an axe strongly resembled the old Dwarf Queen.
Come to think of it...
That post from Daum Café yesterday. There are hundreds of comments saying you paid someone to promote this place.
Son Jeonga had said that while storming in.
Then the only patient Gain had treated on opening day...
The fragile young mother who had desperately clung to her and cried...
Must have spent the entire night writing in Gain's defense.
Gain quietly chuckled.
She reminds me of Serenia, the High Elf of the Silver Forest.
After childbirth, Serenia had suffered mana reflux that caused both breasts to begin rotting.
Ashamed of her condition, she'd hidden herself alone deep inside the forest.
If her close friend Magni hadn't dragged Gain there despite the tension between their races, Serenia might have remained hidden forever.
She might have simply died without treatment.
When Gain solved the mana reflux and purified the rotten tissue, Serenia only bowed her head lightly and thanked her.
Unlike Magni, who ignored the doctor's advice and got out of bed immediately after surgery, Serenia obediently stayed in bed and rested.
But later, when Gain tried to build a temple and medical center despite persecution from the religious order, that quiet Elf had helped in a completely unexpected way.
While Magni dragged a massive axe around threatening priests, Serenia secretly investigated the high priests who were accusing Gain of heresy.
She perfectly organized evidence of their corruption and nailed it to the doors of the Papal Palace.
Then she spread word of their crimes throughout the capital.
Thanks to her, Gain successfully completed the temple, a medical-centered treatment facility.
Maybe similar souls keep appearing in both worlds.
South Korea.
A place without magic or miracles.
Gain had assumed everything would feel familiar when she returned.
But perhaps she'd spent too long in that other world.
There was still an awkward feeling inside her, almost like an immigrant returning to their homeland after decades abroad.
Gain finally realized what that feeling was.
I miss them.
Not the environment where everyone worshiped her as a Saintess.
Not the endless divine power she'd once possessed.
She missed the friends who had always stood on her side.
Eunjae returned after changing out of her milk-soaked clothes and began disinfecting the consultation room.
Her hand paused while spraying disinfectant.
"Director."
"Yes?"
"...Never mind."
Eunjae closed her mouth.
But Gain already knew what she'd been watching since yesterday.
The second drawer of the treatment cart.
The unopened box of sterile gloves.
In that world, I sterilized my hands using divine power.
But this wasn't that world.
Her divine power was now no more plentiful than drops falling from the edge of a roof.
She couldn't waste that precious resource killing bacteria.
Even after opening the clinic, Gain kept washing her hands and examining patients barehanded because direct touch gave her more precise information.
Every time she did, Jo Eunjae would nervously hover nearby, clearly desperate to hand her gloves.
Gain had pretended not to notice.
This is a world overflowing with gloves.
Sterile packaged latex gloves in every size could be purchased whenever she wanted.
Drawers were filled with things she'd dreamed of on the battlefield.
There was no reason to stubbornly cling to an old habit.
"Nurse Eunjae, prepare gloves for procedures from now on."
Eunjae answered with obvious happiness.
"...Yes!"
There was real strength in her voice.
Perhaps because Gain had just been missing old friends...
Someone very welcome visited that afternoon.
"Goodness, is this the place? This is where our doctor is?"
